After U.N. climate talks in Durban, South Africa, produced yet
another international commitment to wait a few more years before
committing to anything, Canada has gone and done exactly what many
feared it would do and pulled out of the Kyoto Protocol, making it the first country to formally do so. And today, the finger-pointing begins.

Promptly after returning from the talks in Durban, Canadian
Environment Minister Peter Kent took to the airwaves, telling his
country and the world that “Kyoto, for Canada, is in the past.” Kent
cited the usual reasons: the emissions standards don’t cover the world’s
two biggest emitters--China and the United States--and that the onerous
demands of Kyoto are causing Canada to lose its economic
competitiveness. Then for good measure, he managed to get a few shots in
at the Liberal government that preceded the current administration.

The
criticism that Kyoto doesn’t require anything legally binding from the
U.S. (which refused to ratify it) and China (whose commitment to cut
emissions is not legally binding) is an old and frequent one. Kent
argued that global emissions would continue to rise as a result of this,
even as Canada is forced to come up with roughly $14 billion to buy
carbon credits abroad since the country is so far behind on its
reductions.

Under the 1997 agreement--the only legally binding international
agreement to cut carbon emissions--Canada was supposed to cut its
greenhouse gas emissions to 6 percent below 1990 levels during the four
years between 2008 and 2012. Right now it is something like 30 percent
above the target. Hence, Kyoto is something of an albatross around the
neck of the the Canadian government (and economy), and the country is
now the first to bail on the agreement. That decision is drawing
criticism from governments around the world. Even China is getting in on
the ribbing, saying that Canada is going against the efforts of the
international community to combat climate change.